(Huntington, NY) – Please join Huntington Town Councilwoman Susan A. Berland and Village of Northport Trustee Tom Kehoe for the 8th annual Clean Beaches Day from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 1, 2013.

Volunteers have the option of registering for a clean-up at Centerport Beach, Crab Meadow Beach or Gold Star Battalion Beach. In addition, volunteers can register to be part of the “Clean Beaches Bus Tour” which takes them to clean Hobart Beach, Asharoken Beach and Scudder Beach. All clean-up supplies and water for volunteers will be delivered to each beach prior to the event.

Following the clean-ups, a special luncheon will be held beginning at noon at the Town of Huntington Senior Beach House at Centerport Beach, at which time volunteers can relax, enjoy refreshments and play a game of volleyball.

Please join Huntington Town Councilwoman Susan A. Berland and Village of Northport Trustee Tom Kehoe SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2013 FOR THE 8TH ANNUAL CLEAN BEACHES DAY.

For more information on Clean Beaches Day or to register to volunteer, please contact Allison Jones in the Department of Citizen Services at (631) 351-3018 or visit the Town’s website at http://www.huntingtonny.gov/cleanup to register online for Clean Beaches Day. Click the Clean Beaches Day icon and complete the form with your name, contact information, and beach preference. In the comments, please be sure to include your t-shirt size.

(Long Island, NY) The Rockville Centre Police Department has announced that Officer Paul Kaplon has been selected as the “Cop of the Year” for the Rockville Centre Police Department.

Officer Kaplon is a three year veteran of the department, joining the department in December 2009.

He is a highly decorated member of the United State Marine Corp., serving two combat tours in Iraq.

In his time with the Rockville Centre Police Department, he has distinguished himself as a valuable asset to the Rockville Centre Police Department, earning the “Cop of the Month” distinction in the past. Officer Kaplon’s dedication to duty and thorough attention to detail during his investigations is apparent when reviewing his history of service to the community.

“Officer Kaplon has proven to be a knowledgeable and skilled member of our Patrol force.” said Lieutenant Chris Romance, Commanding Officer of Field Services, Rockville Centre Police Department.

(Albany, N.Y.) – One week ago, in celebration of our state’s extraordinary Senior Citizens, Senator Kevin Parker (D-21) and the New York State Office for the Aging, honored Ms. Hazel Collman-Foster for her twenty years of civic engagement, voluntarism and leadership in Central Brooklyn. A native of Jamaica, Ms. Collman-Foster moved to the United States in 1966 and made New York home, for which we are grateful.

“I have known Hazel Foster for much of my life, as has everyone in Flatbush and East Flatbush,” said Senator Kevin Parker. “Her energy, charm and incredible spirit have made her an indispensable member of many neighborhood organizations, and the leader of some of our community’s strongest institutions.”

Among her numerous accomplishments, Ms. Collman-Foster was recognized for being the President of the 300 East 25th Street Block Association; President of the Bethel Holy Church Usher Board; Peer Leader of the CAMBA Anti-Stigma HIV/AIDS; as well as a volunteer for R.S.V.P. Catholic Charities Heart Share Division; and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Ms. Collman is also a member of the Neighborhood Housing Services of East Flatbush; Community Board 17, Services for the Undeserved Human Resources Department, the 67th Precinct Council, and the Tilden Hall Residence (Shelter) Advisory Board.

“Ms. Foster is an example of the type of leader who makes a neighborhood into a community,” continued the Senator. “It was a great pleasure to have the opportunity to honor such a pillar of the community, and a woman who has provided an inspiration to so many of us.”

Ms. Collman-Foster was also appointed to the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), and is an alumni member of the New York Police Department Citizen’s Police Academy. The New York State Office for the Aging takes one day per year to honor members of New York’s greatest generation, so they might receive the recognition their deeds deserve, and so their example might inspire people across our great state.

About Senator Kevin Parker
Senator Kevin S. Parker is intimately familiar with the needs of his ethnically diverse Brooklyn community that consists of 318,000 constituents in Flatbush, East Flatbush, Midwood, Ditmas Park, Kensington, Windsor Terrace, and Park Slope. He is the Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee, Assistant Democratic Leader for Intergovernmental Affairs, and Chair of the Democratic Task Force on New Americans.

FROM THE OFFICE OF STATE SENATOR KEVIN PARKER (D-Brooklyn)
Contact: Mynah Gooden ?????| mynah.gooden@gmail.com | 718-629-6401 ph |347-859-3588 cell

(South Floral Park, NY)- The Incorporated Village of South Floral Park will host a celebration honoring members of the Armed Forces again this year. The ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 18, 2013 starting at 11am at the village hall at 383 Roquette Avenue in South Floral Park. A celebration of Armed Forces Day is rare & the village would like to keep its long-time tradition of proudly acknowledging those who sacrifice their lives for our freedom.

The event will include powerful speeches by our village mayor, Honorable Geoffrey N. Prime, & also community leaders & veterans, Keynote Speaker Lecia A. Rodrigues-Whyte & Julius Freeman. Other guests attending are representatives of the Nassau County Police Department, The American Legion & Veterans of Foreign Wars Organization, & state & local elected officials. Local military members, past & present, will also be honored to include a Tuskegee Airman & Pearl Harbor attack survivor. South Floral Park Village Officials, Civic Association members, & the South Floral Park Volunteer Fire Department will also be present among all the residents & invited guests.

Further, the Sewanhaka High School band will play a selection of patriotic songs with the presentation of colors by the Marine Corps. Additionally, the Invocation & Benediction will be made by leaders of the United Methodist Church. After the placing of the wreath & completion of the ceremony this family-friendly event will offer raffles & refreshments in the fire house & an excellent opportunity to meet & greet & network with neighbors, guests, & speakers.

Everyone is encouraged to attend & pay homage to our past, current, & fallen soldiers!

For additional information on South Floral Park please call village hall at 516.352.8047, fax 516.352.0651, or email info@southfloralpark.org. Please visit our website for more village & event information at www.southfloralpark.org or check out our Facebook page for regular updates on village life at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Village-of-South-Floral-Park/326897430712645

(Mineola, NY) – Attorney Tae Ethan Choi of Mineola uses his Korean heritage and his fluency in the Korean language to help for the advantage of Korean residents. He regularly volunteers for the Nassau County Bar Association’s mortgage foreclosure and Sandy recovery clinics whenever Korean language interpretation and a consulting attorney are needed, even on short notice. For his exemplary volunteer service, NCBA President Marian Rice has named Tae Ethan Choi Pro Bono Attorney of the Month for May 2013.

Attorney Tae Ethan Choi of Mineola

Choi was born in Seoul, Korea and immigrated with his family to Queens in 1985. He began his professional career as a CPA, then as an attorney, receiving his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School where he was a William P. Richardson Scholar. He served Wall Street firms, international banks, venture capital funds and consulting companies. Ethan’s long-term commitment to volunteer work, however, changed his life course. Gradually, he began to move towards elder law.

Currently, Choi is an associate attorney in the firm of Michael L. Pfeifer PC, Garden City, where he focuses on elder law, Medicaid law, trusts, estate planning, long-term care, planning for persons with disabilities and asset preservation. At the Nassau County Bar Association Choi is active in the Elder Law, Social Services, Health Advocacy and Surrogates Court Estates and Trusts committees.

In 2011, Ethan was selected as a New York State Empire State Counsel for pro bono work by the New York State Bar Association and was a recipient of the Certificate of Appreciation from the Suffolk County Department of Health Services Office of Minority Health. He continues to serve as a volunteer lecturer on the legal implications of stroke and Alzheimer’s disease for various organizations including the Holy Name Medical Center, Flushing Hospital Medical Center, Korean-American CPA Association, Korean-American Chamber of Commerce, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, HSBC Bank, Korean-American Senior Citizens Association and the Long Island Asian Pacific American Community Center.

Choi is fluent in Korean and his elder law columns are published in the New York Korea Times, Korea Daily, Senior US Times and Sunday Korea Times. He serves as a regular guest on a live call-in radio program on AM1660 for seniors where he discusses elder law issues and has also appeared on MKTV, KNN News, TKC-TV, KBN-TV.

Nassau County Bar Association
Founded in 1899, the Nassau County Bar Association, with a membership of nearly 6,000 private and public attorneys, judges, legal educators and law students, is the largest suburban bar association in the country. NCBA demonstrates its commitment to the community by offering a variety of services for the public, including lawyer referral services, senior citizen and mortgage foreclosure clinics, judicial screening, public education programs and support for the Volunteer Lawyers Project, which provides much-needed free legal services for the indigent of Nassau County. WE CARE, the NCBA’s charitable arm, assists children, the elderly and others in need, through countless projects and donations.

For more information, call (516) 747-4070 (translation services available), email info@nassaubar.org, or visit www.nassaubar.org.

(Wheatley Heights, NY) Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, the country’s largest day summer school for the arts, located in Wheatley Heights, has partnered with Long Island Community Foundation in a new program of “micro grants” to provide Brentwood High School students with support for their studies in music. The program will help them obtain essential music supplies and private lessons. In addition, some Brentwood students will be selected for three thousand dollar tuition scholarships to study at Usdan this summer, and the grants will help them with the costs of their daily transportation to the Center. It is anticipated that the micro grants will range from approximately $100 – $400 each, with a goal of supporting the musical needs of approximately fifteen Brentwood students during the 2012-13 school year. Speaking of the new program, Dale Lewis, Usdan Center’s Executive Director, said, “This funding is intended to recognize and support the student musicians at BHS, and to pay tribute to their dedicated and talented music teachers. The success of Brentwood’s music program is a big story being played out in small increments by Long Island school and studio music teachers, one good deed at a time.”

The new grants are designed to allow students to obtain teacher-approved music supplies or music study in order to further the their school, college and career aspirations in the arts. Already, nine BHS students have had five private lessons each, and their private teachers have endorsed the program’s spirit with their offer of reduced-fee lessons.

The process of awarding Usdan’s grants begins with the recommendation of a Brentwood teacher on behalf of one of his or her students. Once the district’s supervisor has approved the grant request, approved items are purchased for the students. These include strings for violin and cello students, reeds and mouthpieces for wind and brass students, and lessons and transportation for enrichment programming that is a goal of the program.

David Okorn, Executive Director of the LI Community Foundation believes in the program’s impact on children in a high needs Long Island community: “Research shows us that young people who have access to the arts not only perform better in school, but in life. This program reaches out to low-income students faced with economic obstacles that keep them from fully developing their talents. It’s a winning opportunity and we are pleased to be a part of it.”

Usdan’s grant was made possible by the Elizabeth Pritzker Endowment Fund, a field of interest fund at the Long Island Community Foundation. The Long Island Community Foundation (LICF) is the Island’s community foundation, making grants to improve our region and helping donors with their philanthropy since 1978. LICF is a division of The New York Community Trust.

Salutes scout for hard work and dedication to the Huntington community

(Long Island, NY) Assemblyman Chad Lupinacci (R,C,WF,I-Huntington Station) recently joined members of Boy Scout Troop 34 for the Eagle Scout Court of Honor for Stephen Edward Dybus. Dybus earned his Eagle Scout badge on February 27 and serves as an Assistant Scoutmaster.

Assemblyman Chad Lupinacci joins South Huntington School Board Vice-President Nicholas Ciappetta, Eagle Scout Stephen Edward Dybus, and school board President Jim Kaden.

“Stephen’s ascent to the rank of Eagle Scout is the culmination of years of hard work,” said Lupinacci. “During his time in the scouting program, Stephen has truly been a leader and his court of honor is not just a celebration of his dedication, but also a thank you for all the hard work and time contributed by his scoutmasters and fellow scouts. It was an honor to celebrate with Stephen, his troop mates, his friends and family on this important occasion and I applaud his achievement.”

During his time in the Boy Scouts, Dybus earned 27 merit badges, including Camping, Citizenship in the Nation and Scouting Heritage.

Governor Cuomo announces major changes to Long Island Power Authority

(Long Island, NY) Assemblyman Ed Ra (R-19th District) expressed optimism for Governor Cuomo’s proposed changes to the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA). The governor’s plans include streamlining of LIPA’s bureaucracy, new customer service priorities and guidelines and a three-year rate freeze. Poor customer service and exorbitant rates have long been a hallmark of LIPA, but their ineptitude was magnified greatly in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Because of this, the governor is proposing that Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) take over the day to day operations that LIPA has had in the past. PSEG is New Jersey’s largest utilities company and was praised by many for its quick organized response in the wake of Sandy. It would leave state-owned LIPA as holder of $7 billion of debt. Refinancing half of that will ease bills for rate payers. Ra applauded the governor’s announcement, but also stressed the need to ensure long-term affordability and reliable customer service for Long Island families.

“Reforming LIPA has been an issue of great discussion and concern for Long Islanders and while I’m awaiting the full details of the plan released today, I’m cautiously optimistic going forward,” said Ra. “Over the past several months, it has become clear that fully privatizing the authority was not feasible, but the governor has managed to address many of the issues most important to our residents, namely the fact that the current cost of electricity contributes to our region’s high cost of living and the cost of doing business and the need for better, more responsive customer service.

“The three-year rate freeze and restructuring of debt is a great first step in reducing energy costs and I hope that we can go further and actually lower energy rates long-term. The changes to LIPA’s infrastructure are critically important, particularly in the face of their utter failure to provide reliable, quality customer service and communication when our residents needed it after Superstorm Sandy.

“It’s painfully clear that the status quo is not working for Long Island and I’m hopeful that the changes proposed today are the first step towards the low-cost, reliable energy and customer service our residents deserve.”

(NEW YORK) – Today, the Minnesota Senate voted 37-30 to pass a bill allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry in that state, and Governor Mark Dayton will sign the bill into law tomorrow afternoon. The Minnesota House passed the bill on May 9. Minnesota becomes the twelfth state, plus the District of Columbia, to permit gay and lesbian couples to marry. The following statement may be attributed to Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman regarding the passage of marriage equality in Minnesota:

“After today’s vote, Minnesota will become the twelfth state in the union, and the third in the span of a month, to allow gay and lesbian couples to legally marry. This remarkable series of victories in a matter of weeks is one more sign that the ground has shifted in our country in favor of equal justice under law for gay and lesbian Americans. In the wake of these legislative advances, it is time for the Supreme Court to overturn the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act. As my office has argued in the Supreme Court, DOMA undermines the efforts of states like New York, and now Minnesota, to provide equal rights and protection under the law for same-sex couples.”

A.G. Schneiderman led a coalition of 15 states and the District of Columbia in filing a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which refuses to recognize for all federal purposes same-sex marriages valid under state law. A copy of the Attorney General’s amicus brief filed in the case of United States v. Windsor can be read here.

In a separate case affecting the marriage rights of same sex couples, Hollingsworth v. Perry, Attorney General Schneiderman joined a friend-of-the-court brief filed by Massachusetts, and joined by 12 other States, urging the Supreme Court to hold that California’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. For more information on the two friend-of-the-court briefs in United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry, click here.

A.G. Schneiderman also successfully defended New York’s marriage equality law from legal challenge in New York State’s highest court. On October 23, 2012, the New York State Court of Appeals sided with A.G. Schneiderman’s office in a rejecting a challenge to the Marriage Equality Act.

(Queens, NY) — NYS Senator Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr. (D-Queens) is co-sponsoring legislation designed to protect the privacy of New York’s school children and prevent their personal information from being provided to corporate entities and commercial vendors without the specific permission of their parents or the students themselves.

“New York and several other states have recently agreed to provide confidential student information to corporate entities associated with the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation and the News Corp., owned by media magnate Rupert Murdoch,” said Addabbo. “As a parent and an elected official, I find it highly disturbing – especially since parents and students are not being given an opportunity to opt out of this information distribution. The bill I’m co-sponsoring will address this important privacy issue and protect student data from possible misuse.”

The information about students – including names, addresses, test scores, disciplinary and attendance records, race, ethnicity, disabilities and other highly sensitive data – is to be used for a variety of purposes and will be made available to commercial vendors to help them create and market learning products. It will be provided to a new company called “inBloom,” which is creating a national database of student information to aid businesses who contract with schools in developing their teaching materials.

“No one questions that we want our school children to have top-notch teaching materials that will help them learn and succeed,” said Addabbo, a member of the Senate Education Committee. “But invading the privacy of our children and families, and possibly even exposing them to identity theft, certainly isn’t the right way to go.” He noted that the Murdoch-owned News Corp. has recently been weathering a number of scandals associated with personal privacy invasion issues.

Under the bipartisan legislation (S.4284/A.6059), stringent safeguards on the release of student personal data to third parties would be implemented, including a prohibition on “inBloom” information being gathered and used without the express consent of parents of minor children and of those students who are 18 years or older.

“I hope this crucial legislation receives the attention and action it deserves during the remainder of the 2013 legislative session,” said Addabbo. “Data mining, even purportedly for the sake of educational innovation, is still data mining and must be subject to appropriate and effective privacy controls and protections.”

The legislation is now under consideration by the Senate and Assembly Education Committees.